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This dissertation constructs a theory of securitization, termed Social Securitization Theory (SST), grounded in the social and communicative interactions between central security policymakers and the external audiences responsible for authorizing and legitimizing security policy and action. Through an examination of 32 empirical studies of securitization, this project uses inductive analysis to develop three primary components of SST, which places the audience in a much more central role, outlines a detailed social securitization process, and develops the audience across three analytical dimensions.
Within the current literature, the "securitization" of an issue – the construction of an issue as an existential threat requiring the use of policies which go beyond standard political practice – entails the use of communicative tools by securitizing actors (central policymakers) with the goal of presenting an issue towards an external audience as a security threat justifying an extreme response. Once this presentation, called the "securitizing move", is made, the audience is usually seen as having two options: accept the presentation, thus applying the "security threat" label to the issue and legitimizing the extreme response, or reject it.
The presence of the audience makes securitization unique within the literature, as it presents security as an intersubjective construction, as opposed to objective reality or subjective thought. By virtue of its role, the audience is a vital element of the securitization process and an essential aspect of the creation of shared security meanings and the selection of security policies. However, the theoretical understanding of the securitization audience is limited.
SST offers a reformulation of the relationship between the securitizing actor and audience by placing their interaction as the centerpiece of securitization analysis, combined with a theory of the audience which shifts the role of the audience from passive to active and from a reflexive participant to an engaged contributor to security threat construction and policy selection. This not only bolsters the intersubjective disposition of securitization theory to reflect what is seen in the empirical literature, but also has the potential to greatly enhance our ability to explain the construction of security identities and shared meanings that inform security and foreign policy.